business continuity plan norsk

Slik lager du en krisehåndteringsplan for bedriften

En rask innføring i hvordan du kan komme i gang med en krisehåndteringsplan. 

En krisehåndteringsplan er sannsynligvis det viktigste du kan lage for bedriften din og samtidig håpe du aldri får bruk for. I denne artikkelen gir vi deg en rask innføring i hvordan du kan komme i gang med en krisehåndteringsplan.

Hvis bedriften din havner i en krisesituasjon – det være seg alt fra streik til naturkatastrofer til lekkasjer av sensitiv informasjon – er det viktig å kunne handle raskt. En god krisehåndteringsplan gjør at alle vet hva neste skritt er for å minimere skaden og stable bedriften tilbake på beina.

Dette faller inn under BCM – Business Continuity Management. ISO27001 og ISO 22301 gir gode pekepinner på hvordan det gjøres i detalj. Du kan også få ekstern hjelp gjennom for eksempel Veritas , eller MSB i Sverige.

For deg som bare trenger en rask innføring, er dette blogginnlegget et godt sted å begynne.

Kartlegging

Det første du burde foreta deg er å gjøre en såkalt Business Impact Analysis . Det er en analyse som identifiserer bedriftens mest kritiske funksjoner, og hva konsekvensene vil være ved et avbrudd i dem. Slik kan du prioritere hvilke funksjoner, tjenester eller produkter som raskest må tilbake, og hvilke bedriften har råd til å sette på vent.

Et relevant uttrykk her er MAO – Maximum Acceptable Outage. Det vil si et anslag du har gjort for hvor lenge bedriften kan tolerere å gå uten en viss funksjon. Sett også et RTO – Recovery Time Objective – et mål for hvor lang tid du skal bruke for å få dem opp igjen. Det er naturligvis positivt her om RTO ikke puster MAO i nakken, slik at bedriften har litt større spillerom.

Tilsvarende burde du vurdere hva bedriftens største trusler er, hvor deres største svakheter ligger, og dermed hva det er viktigst å forberede seg på. Du vil aldri kunne stille like forberedt på absolutt alt, så nok en gang handler det om prioriteringer.

Planer og rutiner

Neste skritt er å danne en plan basert på funnene fra kartleggingsfasen. Det er imperativt at bedriften fordeler roller, og utnevner en aktiv gruppe med ansvar for krisehåndtering. Uten dette skrittet ender fort krisehåndteringsplanen opp som en mappe i en skuff, som ingen egentlig har noe forhold til, og dermed blir tilnærmet verdiløst i en faktisk krise.

Jo mer detaljert planen er, jo enklere er den å følge uten at det oppstår feil. Beskriv så mange skritt som mulig. Det er mye bedre å være overtydelig enn å overlate ting til tilfeldighetene. Sjekklisteformatet fungerer gjerne godt her.

Tydelig kommunikasjon er også ekstremt viktig i en krise, både internt og utad. Sørg for å etablere klare kommunikasjonslinjer – hvem rapporterer til hvem om hva, hvordan, når og hvor ofte – slik at alle holdes oppdaterte på hva som er gjort og ikke. Pass på at også kommunikasjon med pressen faller i kompetente hender, siden «ingen kommentar» ofte tolkes som en innrømmelse av skyld eller mangel på kontroll.

Når planen er ferdig skrevet og rollene fordelt, gjenstår testing og øvelser. Du har tre måter å gjøre dette på:

• Skrivebordsøvelser – Den enkleste varianten. Alle involverte parter samles rundt et skrivebord eller i et møterom og går gjennom plandokumentene i plenum. Slik blir alle bedre kjent med dem og finner eventuelle mangler.
• Scenariotesting – Bruk av rollespill til å teste ut mulige scenarier i praksis. Dette er en slags forkortet versjon av siste variant, som er:
• Skarpe tester – En omfattende gjennomgang av planen der et krisescenario spilles ut i sin helhet. Hvert punkt skal gjennomgås, og testingen er ikke begrenset til et møterom. Skarpe tester skal gjøres så virkelighetsnære som mulig.

Lær av øvelsene, gjør nødvendige endringer, og gjenta med forsvarlige mellomrom.

Til slutt, dersom bedriften din ikke allerede har noen krisehåndteringsplan, er det smart å starte i det små. Begynn med å etablere noen rutiner for de aller mest kritiske funksjonene til bedriften, slik at du er sikret at de er på plass. Så kan du gradvis bygge ut planen over tid.

Dermed risikerer du ikke å ende opp i en krisesituasjon med en plan som kun er 10 prosent ferdig, men dekker de (hittil) ubrukelige 10 prosentene i omhyggelig detalj.

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What Is A Business Continuity Plan? [+ Template & Examples]

Published: December 30, 2022

When a business crisis occurs, the last thing you want to do is panic.

The second-to-last thing you want to do is be unprepared. Crises typically arise without warning. While you shouldn't start every day expecting the worst, you should be relatively prepared for anything to happen.

A business crisis can cost your company a lot of money and ruin your reputation if you don't have a business continuity plan in place. Customers aren't very forgiving, especially when a crisis is influenced by accidents within the company or other preventable mistakes. If you want your company to be able to maintain its business continuity in the face of a crisis, then you'll need to come up with this type of plan to uphold its essential functions.

In this post, we'll explain what a business continuity plan is, give examples of scenarios that would require a business continuity plan, and provide a template that you can use to create a well-rounded program for your business.

Table of Contents:

What is a business continuity plan?

• Business Continuity Types
• Business Continuity vs Disaster Recovery

Business Continuity Plan Template

How to write a business continuity plan.

• Business Continuity Examples

A business continuity plan outlines directions and procedures that your company will follow when faced with a crisis. These plans include business procedures, names of assets and partners, human resource functions, and other helpful information that can help maintain your brand's relationships with relevant stakeholders. The goal of a business continuity plan is to handle anything from minor disruptions to full-blown threats.

For example, one crisis that your business may have to respond to is a severe snowstorm. Your team may be wondering, "If a snowstorm disrupted our supply chain, how would we resume business?" Planning contingencies ahead of time for situations like these can help your business stay afloat when you're faced with an unavoidable crisis.

When you think about business continuity in terms of the essential functions your business requires to operate, you can begin to mitigate and plan for specific risks within those functions.

Crisis Communication and Management Kit

Manage, plan for, and communicate during your corporate crises with these crisis management plan templates.

• Free Crisis Management Plan Template
• 12 Crisis Communication Templates
• Post-Crisis Performance Grading Template
• Additional Crisis Best Management Practices

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Business Continuity Planning

Business continuity planning is the process of creating a plan to address a crisis. When writing out a business continuity plan, it's important to consider the variety of crises that could potentially affect the company and prepare a resolution for each.

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How to craft an effective business continuity plan

Let me take you back in time to the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Punk music was gaining popularity, and the Sex Pistols entered the punk rock scene with the force of a shooting star, capturing fans’ attention.

But as quickly as they arrived, they quickly left the scene. When they broke up in 1978 after a period of internal conflicts, legal troubles, and their frontman’s imprisonment, fans were left both shocked and surprised.

Just like the Sex Pistols, plenty of companies experience rapid growth and success, only to face unexpected challenges and internal conflicts that result in their downfall.

In this article, we’ll draw inspiration from the Sex Pistols’ turbulent journey to explore the concept of business continuity planning (BCP). We’ll look at what a BCP is, why you need one and delve into the strategies and contingency measures that can help you maintain your rhythm and continuity, even when faced with the inevitable storms that can disrupt your operations.

What is a business continuity plan?

A business continuity plan describes how you’ll continue your business when disaster hits. It is a structured strategy outlining how your organization will maintain essential functions when disaster strikes, to ensure minimal downtime and guarantee that operations continue.

Why do you need a BCP in place?

The BCP is crucial and revolves around ensuring your resilience and ability to continue operating in the face of unexpected disruptions, such as natural disasters, cyberattacks, or other emergencies.

Let’s look at it a bit closer, and understand some of the key reasons to have a BCP better:

Minimize downtime

Protect revenue and reputation, compliance and legal requirements, resource allocation, maintain customer service, employee safety.

A BCP helps you minimize downtime. It does this by providing a structured approach to quickly recover and resume your critical business functions.

Example: You’re a retail company with an extensive online presence. If your website experiences a cyberattack that takes it offline, a well-prepared BCP outlines the steps to take to mitigate the attack, get your website back up in no time, and allow you to continue serving your customers.

No one likes disruptions as they result in revenue loss and can damage your reputation. A BCP helps you protect against financial losses and keep customer trust.

Example: You’re the owner of a restaurant chain with multiple locations and one of your branches has a food safety crisis. A BCP can guide you in managing the crisis, ensuring food safety compliance, and communicating effectively with customers to maintain trust in the brand and other locations.

Some industries, like the financial, and pharma industries, have regulatory requirements that mandate businesses to have BCPs in place. Failure to do so has legal and financial consequences.

Example: You’re the owner of a FinTech company. You are required by regulators to have robust BCPs to ensure customer data security and financial system stability.

When a crisis hits you need the right resources to get you back up and running. A BCP helps allocate resources effectively during a crisis, ensuring that personnel, equipment, and materials are used efficiently to address the most critical needs.

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Example: You’re a manufacturing company hit by a sudden supply chain disruption because the Suez Canal is blocked again. You use your BCP to allocate available resources to meet customer demands and minimize production delays.

When all hell breaks loose you want to make sure customer experience takes a minimum blow. A BCP outlines measures to maintain customer service and communication, so customers receive timely updates and support.

Example: You run an airline and there is a labor strike. Your BCP tells you how to manage customer inquiries, rebook affected passengers, and maintain a level of service.

Let’s not forget about the well-being of your employees. During a crisis, this is a top priority. A BCP includes procedures for evacuations, remote work arrangements, and employee support.

Example: There is a fire at your workplace. The BCP outlines evacuation routes, assembly points, and contact information for employees to report their safety status.

Business continuity planning: Steps for success

That’s a lot of reasons, right? Now that we addressed the necessity and urgency of having BCP, let’s look at 5 steps to creating a successful one:

• Analyze your company
• Assess the risk
• Create the procedures
• Get the word out
• Iterate and improve

1. Analyze your company

In this phase you conduct an analysis to identify critical activities, determine which activities must continue, which can be temporarily paused, and which can operate at a reduced capacity.

You then assess the financial impact of disruptions. This involves asking yourself the question, “How long can I operate without generating revenue and incurring recovery costs?”

As this step covers your whole company, it’s important to get key stakeholders involved from the beginning.

2. Assess the risk

Now you have a good overview of your critical processes and the impact of disruption. At this point, pivot your attention to the risks they face, how well you can handle when things don’t work as usual, and how long you can manage if things go wrong.

The goal here is to understand what could go wrong and find ways to avoid, reduce, or transfer them. This assessment will help you strengthen your preparedness and resilience.

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Think about risks specific to your industry and location

It’s important to consider both internal (e.g. an IT system failure or employee shortage) and external threats (e.g. a natural disaster or supply chain disruption) to your critical business activities.

3. Create the procedures

Once you analyze and assess, you need to create procedures.

Develop detailed, step-by-step procedures to minimize risks to your organization’s people, operations, and assets. This can include changes to your operating model, such as using alternative suppliers or implementing remote work options.

4. Get the word out

A plan is just a plan and no one will know how to act if you don’t communicate.

This step is all about communication. Integrate the BCP into your operations, policies, and company culture, and train, test, and communicate with your employees.

And don’t forget that communication is not limited to your company only. Communicate with external stakeholders, customers, suppliers, and so forth.

5. Iterate and improve

Before implementing your BCP ensure its effectiveness.

Don’t worry there are plenty more options to test your BCP. Consider involving external stakeholders or vendors as it makes exercises more realistic. Frequently train those who are accountable for executing the BCP.

After experiencing a real incident or conducting a training exercise, update your plan to improve its ability to protect your business. Keep in mind that both your organization’s development and the circumstances you operate in change, so a regular review isn’t a luxury but a necessity.

How to structure your continuity plan

Now you have a high-level understanding, let’s look at how to structure your business continuity plan.

You can find a copy of the template I use here .

Make sure to include the following sections in your BCP:

Version history

Executive summary, functions and process prioritization, plan activation, governance and responsibilities, recovery plans, crisis communication plan, emergency location and contents, review and testing.

This section shows the revision history. It includes the version numbers of the changes made, by whom, when, and who approved the changes. The revision history allows anyone reading the BCP to understand how it has evolved over time.

The executive summary provides a brief summary of the key objectives, goals, scope, and applicability of the BCP.

This chapter outlines the critical functions and processes in scope of continuation in case of a disastrous event.

This section refers to the risk and business impact assessment outcome. Its aim is to set out what triggers the activation of the plan.

Governance and responsibilities talks about who has to act when the BCP is activated. It includes the members, a description of their responsibilities, contact details of the BCP team, and the chain of command during a crisis.

This section builds upon the business continuity strategies, specifically the one chosen when a disaster occurs. It describes the detailed recovery plans for each critical function, the procedures for restarting operations, resource allocation, and recovery time objectives (RTOs).

Here you cover the internal and external communication strategies. You also address employee awareness and training activities.

Now there is a good chance the disaster will require your crucial activities to temporarily continue at a different location. This section covers all details about the location and what needs to be available at the location.

The BCP is to be tested to reduce the risk of missing things or even worse failing. Here jot down the testing procedures and document results and lessons learned.

This section includes all appendices. Think about the following

• Supporting documents, such as contact lists, maps, and technical specifications
• References to external standards, guidelines, or regulations
• Training programs for BCP team members
• Review of insurance policies
• Financial reserves and funding for recovery efforts
• Procedures for keeping the BCP documentation up to date

Business continuity plan example

Earlier this year, the Koninklijke Nederlands Voetbal Bond (KNVB), which is the Royal Dutch Football Association, was hit by ransomware. The cyberattackers threatened to share personally identifiable information captured and the KNVB paid over one million euros to avoid this from happening.

What could have been done to mitigate the ransomware attack risk?

The Risk of the attack to succeed could have been mitigated with:

• Regular data backups
• Segmentation of networks
• Intrusion detection systems

How to ensure business continuity in case of ransomware?

In response to the ransomware incident, and to allow for continued business as usual as soon as possible, steps could include:

• Isolating affected systems
• Activating backups
• Notifying law enforcement
• Engaging with a cybersecurity incident response team

Key takeaways

A business continuity plan (BCP) is like a safety net for your business when things go haywire. It helps you keep going, avoiding downtime, revenue loss, and reputation hits. On top of that, it’s a legal must in certain industries.

To make a solid BCP, just follow five steps: figure out what’s crucial for your business, spot the risks, plan how to bounce back, make sure everyone knows the plan, and keep fine-tuning it.

Structurally, your BCP should have sections like history, a quick guide, what’s most important, when to activate it, who’s in charge, the nitty-gritty recovery plans, how communication is done, where to go in a crisis, how to test the BCP works, and some extra info.

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How to Write a Business Continuity Plan Step-by-Step: Our Experts Provide Tips

By Andy Marker | October 21, 2020 (updated August 17, 2021)

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In order to adequately prepare for a crisis, your company needs a business continuity plan. We’ve culled detailed step-by-step instructions, as well as expert tips for writing a business continuity plan and free downloadable tools.  

Included on this page, find the steps to writing a business continuity plan and a discussion of the key components in a plan . You’ll also find a business continuity plan quick-start template  and a disruptive incident quick-reference card template for print or mobile, and an expert disaster preparation checklist .

Step by Step: How to Write a Business Continuity Plan

A business continuity plan refers to the steps a company takes to help it continue operations during a crisis. In order to write a business continuity plan, you gather information about key people, tools, and processes, then write the plan as procedures and lists of resources. 

To make formatting easy, download a free business continuity plan template . To learn more about the role of a business continuity plan, read our comprehensive guide to business continuity planning . 

• Write a Mission Statement for the Plan: Describe the objectives of the plan. When does it need to be completed? What is the budget for disaster and recovery preparation, including research, training, consultants, and tools? Be sure to detail any assumptions about financial or other resources, such as government business continuity grants.
• Set Up Governance: Describe the business continuity team. Include names or titles and role designations, as well as contact information. Clearly define roles, lines of authority and succession, and accountability. Add an organization or a functional diagram. Select one of these free organizational chart templates to get started.
• Write the Plan Procedures and Appendices: This is the core of your plan. There's no one correct way to create a business continuity document, but the critical content it should include are procedures, agreements, and resources.Think of your plan as lists of tasks or processes that people must perform to keep your operation running. Be specific in your directions, and use diagrams and illustrations. Remember that checklists and work instructions are simple and powerful tools to convey key information in a crisis. Learn more about procedures and work instructions . You should also note who on the team is responsible for knowing plan details.

• Set Procedures for Testing Recovery and Response: Create test guidelines and schedules for testing. To review the plan, consider reaching out to people who did not write the plan. Put together the forms and checklists that attendees will use during tests.

A business continuity plan is governed by a business continuity policy. You can learn more about creating a business continuity policy and find examples by reading our guide on developing an effective business continuity policy .

How to Create a Business Continuity Plan

Creating a business continuity plan (BCP) involves gathering a team, studying risks and key tasks, and choosing recovery activities. Then write the plan as a set of lists and guidelines, which may address risks such as fires, floods, pandemics, or data breaches.

According to Alex Fullick, your best bet is to create a simple plan. “I usually break everything down into three key categories: people, places, and things. If you focus on a couple of key pieces, you will be a lot more effective. That big binder of procedures is absolutely worthless. You need a bunch of guidelines to say what you do in a given situation: where are our triggers for deciding we’re in a crisis and we have to stop doing XYZ, and just focus on ABC.” 

“Post-pandemic, I think new managers will develop more policies and guidelines of all types than required, as a fear response,” cautions Michele Barry. 

Because every company is different, no two approaches to business continuity planning are the same. Tony Bombacino, Co-Founder and President of Real Food Blends , describes his company’s formal and informal business continuity approaches. “The first step in any crisis is for our nerve center to connect quickly, assess the situation, and then go into action,” he explains. 

“Our sales manager and our marketing manager might discuss what’s going on, and say, ‘Are we going to say anything on social media? Do we need to reach out to any of our customers? The key things, like maintaining stock levels or what if somebody gets sick? What if there's a recall?’ Those plans we have laid out. But we're not a 5,000-person multi-billion-dollar company, so our business continuity plan is often in emails and Google Docs.” 

“I've done planning literally for hundreds of businesses where we've just filled out basic forms,” says Mike Semel, President and Chief Compliance Officer of Semel Consulting . “For example, noting the insurance company's phone number — you know, on the back of your utility bill, which you never look at, there's an emergency number for if the power goes out or if the gas shuts off. We've helped people gather all that information and put it down. Even if there's no other plan, just having that information at their fingertips when they need it may be enough.”

You can also approach your business continuity planning as including three types of responses:

• Proactive Strategies: Proactive approaches prevent crises. For example, you may buy an emergency generator to keep power running in your factory, or install a security system to prevent or limit loss during break-ins. Or you may create a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy and offer training for remote workers to protect your network and data security.
• Reactive Strategies: Reactive strategies are your immediate responses to a crisis. Examples of reactive methods include evacuation procedures, fire procedures, and emergency response strategies.
• Recovery Strategies: Recovery strategies describe how you resume operations to produce a minimum acceptable level of service. The recovery plan includes actions to stand up temporary processes. The plan also describes the longer-term efforts, such as relocation, data restoration, temporary workaround processes, or outsourcing tasks. Recovery strategies are not limited to IT and data recovery.

Quick-Start Guide Business Continuity Plan Template

If you don’t already have a business continuity plan in place, but need to create one in short order to respond to a disruption, use this quick-start business continuity template. This template is available in Word and Google Docs formats, and it’s simply formatted so that you can focus on brainstorming and problem-solving. 

Download Quick-Start Guide Business Continuity Plan Template

Word | PDF | Google Docs | Smartsheet

For other most useful free, downloadable business continuity plan (BCP) templates please read our "Free Business Continuity Plan Templates" article.

Key Components of a Business Continuity Plan

Your company’s complete business continuity plan will have many details. Your plan may differ from other companies' plans based on industry and other factors. Each facility or business unit may also conduct an impact analysis and create disaster recovery and continuity plans . Consider adding these key components to your business plan:

• Contact Information: These pages include contact information for key employees, vendors, and critical third parties. Locate this information at the beginning of the plan. 
• Business Impact Analysis: When you conduct business impact analysis (BIA), you evaluate the financial and other changes in a disruptive event (you can use one of these business impact templates to get started). Evaluate impact in terms of brand damage, product failure or malfunction, lost revenue, or legal and regulatory repercussions.
• Risk Assessment: In this section, assess the potential risks to all aspects of the organization’s operations. Look at potential risks related to such matters as cash on hand, stock levels, and staff qualifications. Although you may face an infinite number of potential internal and external risks, focus on people, places, and things to keep from becoming overwhelmed. Then analyze the effects of any items that are completely lost or need repairs. Also, understand that risk assessment is an ongoing effort that works in tandem with training and testing. Consider adding a completed risk matrix to your plan. You can create one using a downloadable risk matrix template . 
• Critical Functions Analysis and List: As a faster alternative to a BIA, a critical functions analysis reveals what processes are critical to keeping your company running. Examples of critical functions include payroll and wages, accounts receivable, customer service, or production. According to Michele Barry, with a values-based approach to critical functions, you should consider who you really are as a company. Then decide what you must continue doing and what you can stop doing. 
• Trigger and Disaster Declaration Criteria: Here, you should detail how your executive management will know when to declare an emergency and initiate the plan.
• Succession Plan: Identify alternate staff for key roles in each unit. Schedule time throughout the year to observe alternates as they make important decisions and complete recovery tasks.
• Alternate Suppliers: If your goods are regulated (i.e., food, toy, and pharmaceutical manufacturing), your raw resources and parts must always be up to standard. Source suppliers before a crisis to ensure that regulatory vetting and approval do not delay supplies. 
• Operations Plan: Describe how your organization will resume and continue daily operations after a disruption. Include a checklist with such items as supplies, equipment, and information on where data is backed up and where you keep the plan. Note who should have copies of the plan. 
• Crisis Communication Strategy: Detail how the organization will communicate with employees, customers, and third-party entities in the event of a disruption. If regular communications systems are disabled, make a plan for alternate methods. Download a free crisis communication strategy template to get started on this aspect. 
• Incident Response Plan: Describe how your organization plans to respond to a range of likely incidents or disruptions, and define the triggers for activating the plan. 
• Alternate Site Relocation: The alternate site is the location that the organization moves to after a disruption occurs. In the plan, you can also note the transportation and resources required to move the business and the processes you must maintain in this facility.
• Interim Procedures: These are the critical processes that must continue, either in their original or alternate forms.
• Restoration of Critical Data: Critical data includes anything you must immediately recover to maintain normal business functions.
• Vendor Partner Agreements: List your organization’s key vendors and how they can help you maintain or resume operations.
• Work Backlog: This includes the work that piles up when systems are shut down. You must complete this work first when processes start again.
• Recovery Strategy for IT Services: This section details the steps you take to restore the IT processes that are necessary to maintain the business.
• Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO): RTO refers to the maximum amount of time that a company can stop its processes and the length of time without access to data before productivity substantially drops. Determine RTOs for each unit, factoring in people, places, and things. 
• Backup Plans: What if plans, processes, or resources fail or are unavailable? Determine alternatives now, so you don't have to scramble. Decide on a backup roster for personnel who are unavailable.
• Manual Workarounds: This section details how a business can operate by hand, should all failsafe measures break down.
• External Audit Details: For regulated organizations, external audits may be compulsory. Your scheduled internal audits will prepare you for external audits.
• Test and Exercise Plan: Identify how and when you will test the continuity plan, including details about periodic tabletop testing and more complex real-world scenario testing.
• Change Management: Note how you will incorporate learnings from tests and exercises, disseminate changes, and review the plan and track changes.

Key Resources for Business Continuity

To fix problems, restore operations, or submit an insurance claim, you need readily available details of the human resources and other groups that can assist with business continuity. (Your organization's unique situation may also require specific types of resources.) Add this information to appendices at the back of your continuity plan.

Fullick suggests broadening the definition of human assets. "People are our employees, certainly. But we forget that the term ‘people’ includes executive management. Management doesn't escape pandemics or the flu or a car crash. Bad things can happen to them and around them, too." 

Use the following list as a prompt for recording important information about your organization. Your unique situation may require other types of information.

• Lists of key employees and their contact information. Also, think beyond C-level and response team members to staff with long-term or specialized knowledge
• Disaster recovery and continuity team contact names, roles, and contact information
• Emergency contact number for police and emergency services for your location
• Non-emergency contact information for police and medical
• Emergency and non-emergency contact numbers for facilities issues
• Board member contact information
• Personnel roster, including family or emergency contact names and numbers for the entire organization
• Contractors for any repairs
• Client contact information and SLAs
• Insurance contacts for all plans
• Key regulatory contacts.
• Legal contacts
• Vendor contact information and partner agreements and SLAs
• Addresses and details for each office or facility
• Primary and secondary contact and information for each facility or office, including at least one phone number and email address
• Off-site recovery location
• Addresses and access information for storage facilities or vehicle compounds
• Funding and banking information
• IT details and data recovery information, including an inventory of apps and license numbers  
• Insurance policy numbers and agent contact information for each plan, healthcare, property, vehicle, etc.
• Inventory of tangibles, including equipment, hardware, supplies, fixtures, and fittings (if you are a supplier or manufacturer, include an inventory of raw materials and finished goods)
• Lease details
• Licenses, permits, other legal documents
• List of special items that you use regularly, but don't order frequently
• Location of backup equipment
• Utility account numbers and contact information (for electric, gas, telephone, water, waste pickup, etc.)

Activities to Complete Before Writing the Business Continuity Plan

Before you write your plan, take these preliminary steps to assemble a team and gather background information. 

• Incident Commander: This person is responsible for all aspects of an emergency response.
• Emergency Response Team: The emergency response team refers to the group of people in charge of responding to an emergency or disruption.
• Information Technology Recovery Team: This group is responsible for recovering important IT services.
• Alternate Site/Location Operation Team: This team is responsible for maintaining business operations at an alternate site.
• Facilities Management Team: The facilities management team is responsible for managing all of the main business facilities and determining the necessary responses to maintain them in light of a disaster or disruption.
• Department Upper Management: This includes key stakeholders and upper management employees who govern BCP decisions.
• Conduct business impact analysis or critical function analysis. Understand how the loss of processes in each department can affect internal and external operations. See our article on business continuity planning to learn more about BIAs.
• Conduct risk analysis. Determine the potential risks and threats to your organization.
• Identify the scope of the plan. Define where the business continuity plan applies, whether to one office, the entire organization, or only certain aspects of the organization. Use the BIA and risk analysis to identify critical functions and key resources that you must maintain. Set goals to determine the level of detail required. Set milestones to track progress in completing the plan. "Setting scope is essential," Barry insists. "You need to define the core and noncore aspects of the business and the minimum requirements for achieving continuity."
• Strategize recovery approaches: Strategize how your business should respond to a disruption, based on your risk assessment and BIA. During this process, you determine the core details of the BCP, add the key components and resources, and determine the timing for what must happen before, during, and after a disruptive event.

Common Structure of a Business Continuity Plan

Knowing the common structure should help shape the plan — and frees you from thinking about form when you should be thinking about content. Here is an example of a BCP format:

• Business Name: Record the business name, which usually appears on the title page.
• Date: The day the BCP is completed and signed off. 
• Purpose and Scope: This section describes the reason for and span of the plan.
• Business Impact Analysis: Add the results of the BIA to your plan.  
• Risk Assessment: Consider adding the risk assessment matrix to your plan.
• Policy Information: Include the business continuity policy or policy highlights.
• Emergency Management and Response: You can detail emergency response measures separately from other recovery and continuity procedures.
• The Plan: The core of the plan details step-by-step procedures for business recovery and continuity.
• Relevant Appendices: Appendices can include such information as contact lists, org charts, copies of insurance policies, or any supporting documents relevant in a crisis.

Keep in mind that every business is different — no two BCPs look the same. Tailor your business continuity plan to your company, and make sure the document captures all the information you need to keep your business functioning. Having everything you need to know in an emergency is the most crucial part of a BCP.

Disruptive Incident Quick-Reference Card Template

Use this quick-reference card template to write the key steps that employees should take in case of an emergency. Customize this template for each business unit, department, or role. Describe what people should do immediately and in the following days and weeks to continue the business. Print PDFs and laminate them for workstations or wallets, or load the PDFs on your mobile phone. 

Download Disruptive Incident Quick-Reference Card Template 

Expert Disaster Preparation Checklist

Business continuity and disaster planning aren’t just about your buildings and cloud backup — it’s about people and their families. Based on a document by Mike Semel of Semel Consulting, this disaster checklist helps you prepare for the human needs of your staff and their families, including food, shelter, and other comforts.

Tips for Writing a Business Continuity Plan

With its many moving parts and considerations, a business continuity plan can seem intimidating. Follow these tips to help you write, track, and maintain a strong BCP:

• Take the continuity management planning  process seriously.
• Interview key people in the organization who have successfully managed disruptive incidents.
• Get approval from leadership early on and seek their ongoing championship of continuity preparedness.
• Be flexible when it comes to who you involve, what resources you need, and how you achieve the most effective plan.
• Keep the plan as simple and targeted as possible to make it easy to understand.
• Limit the plan to practical disaster response actions.
• Base the plan on the most up-to-date, accurate information available.
• Plan for the worst-case scenario and broadly cover many types of potential disruptive situations. 
• Consider the minimum amount of information or resources you need to keep your business running in a disaster. 
• Use the data you gather in your BIA and risk analysis to make the planning process more straightforward.
• Share the plan and make sure employees have a chance to review it or ask questions. 
• Make the document available in hard copy for easy access, or add it to a shared platform. 
• Continually test, review, and maintain your plan to keep it up to date. 
• Keep the BCP current with organizational and regulatory changes and updates.

Empower Your Teams to Build Business Continuity with Smartsheet

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The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. 

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time.  Try Smartsheet for free, today.

Discover why over 90% of Fortune 100 companies trust Smartsheet to get work done.

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• Business Continuity Plan Basics
• Understanding BCPs
• Benefits of BCPs
• How to Create a BCP
• BCP & Impact Analysis
• BCP vs. Disaster Recovery Plan

Frequently Asked Questions

• Business Continuity Plan FAQs

The Bottom Line

What is a business continuity plan (bcp), and how does it work.

Investopedia / Ryan Oakley

What Is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)? 

A business continuity plan (BCP) is a system of prevention and recovery from potential threats to a company. The plan ensures that personnel and assets are protected and are able to function quickly in the event of a disaster.

Key Takeaways

• Business continuity plans (BCPs) are prevention and recovery systems for potential threats, such as natural disasters or cyber-attacks.
• BCP is designed to protect personnel and assets and make sure they can function quickly when disaster strikes.
• BCPs should be tested to ensure there are no weaknesses, which can be identified and corrected.

Understanding Business Continuity Plans (BCPs)

BCP involves defining any and all risks that can affect the company's operations, making it an important part of the organization's risk management strategy. Risks may include natural disasters—fire, flood, or weather-related events—and cyber-attacks . Once the risks are identified, the plan should also include:

• Determining how those risks will affect operations
• Implementing safeguards and procedures to mitigate the risks
• Testing procedures to ensure they work
• Reviewing the process to make sure that it is up to date

BCPs are an important part of any business. Threats and disruptions mean a loss of revenue and higher costs, which leads to a drop in profitability. And businesses can't rely on insurance alone because it doesn't cover all the costs and the customers who move to the competition. It is generally conceived in advance and involves input from key stakeholders and personnel.

Business impact analysis, recovery, organization, and training are all steps corporations need to follow when creating a Business Continuity Plan.

Benefits of a Business Continuity Plan

Businesses are prone to a host of disasters that vary in degree from minor to catastrophic. Business continuity planning is typically meant to help a company continue operating in the event of major disasters such as fires. BCPs are different from a disaster recovery plan, which focuses on the recovery of a company's information technology system after a crisis.

Consider a finance company based in a major city. It may put a BCP in place by taking steps including backing up its computer and client files offsite. If something were to happen to the company's corporate office, its satellite offices would still have access to important information.

An important point to note is that BCP may not be as effective if a large portion of the population is affected, as in the case of a disease outbreak. Nonetheless, BCPs can improve risk management—preventing disruptions from spreading. They can also help mitigate downtime of networks or technology, saving the company money.

How To Create a Business Continuity Plan

There are several steps many companies must follow to develop a solid BCP. They include:

• Business Impact Analysis : Here, the business will identify functions and related resources that are time-sensitive. (More on this below.)
• Recovery : In this portion, the business must identify and implement steps to recover critical business functions.
• Organization : A continuity team must be created. This team will devise a plan to manage the disruption.
• Training : The continuity team must be trained and tested. Members of the team should also complete exercises that go over the plan and strategies.

Companies may also find it useful to come up with a checklist that includes key details such as emergency contact information, a list of resources the continuity team may need, where backup data and other required information are housed or stored, and other important personnel.

Along with testing the continuity team, the company should also test the BCP itself. It should be tested several times to ensure it can be applied to many different risk scenarios . This will help identify any weaknesses in the plan which can then be corrected.

In order for a business continuity plan to be successful, all employees—even those who aren't on the continuity team—must be aware of the plan.

Business Continuity Impact Analysis

An important part of developing a BCP is a business continuity impact analysis. It identifies the effects of disruption of business functions and processes. It also uses the information to make decisions about recovery priorities and strategies.

FEMA provides an operational and financial impact worksheet to help run a business continuity analysis. The worksheet should be completed by business function and process managers who are well acquainted with the business. These worksheets will summarize the following:

• The impacts—both financial and operational—that stem from the loss of individual business functions and process
• Identifying when the loss of a function or process would result in the identified business impacts

Completing the analysis can help companies identify and prioritize the processes that have the most impact on the business's financial and operational functions. The point at which they must be recovered is generally known as the “recovery time objective.”

Business Continuity Plan vs. Disaster Recovery Plan

BCPs and disaster recovery plans are similar in nature, the latter focuses on technology and information technology (IT) infrastructure. BCPs are more encompassing—focusing on the entire organization, such as customer service and supply chain. 

BCPs focus on reducing overall costs or losses, while disaster recovery plans look only at technology downtimes and related costs. Disaster recovery plans tend to involve only IT personnel—which create and manage the policy. However, BCPs tend to have more personnel trained on the potential processes. 

Why Is Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Important?

Businesses are prone to a host of disasters that vary in degree from minor to catastrophic and business continuity plans (BCPs) are an important part of any business. BCP is typically meant to help a company continue operating in the event of threats and disruptions. This could result in a loss of revenue and higher costs, which leads to a drop in profitability. And businesses can't rely on insurance alone because it doesn't cover all the costs and the customers who move to the competition.

What Should a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Include?

Business continuity plans involve identifying any and all risks that can affect the company's operations. The plan should also determine how those risks will affect operations and implement safeguards and procedures to mitigate the risks. There should also be testing procedures to ensure these safeguards and procedures work. Finally, there should be a review process to make sure that the plan is up to date.

What Is Business Continuity Impact Analysis?

An important part of developing a BCP is a business continuity impact analysis which identifies the effects of disruption of business functions and processes. It also uses the information to make decisions about recovery priorities and strategies.

FEMA provides an operational and financial impact worksheet to help run a business continuity analysis.

These worksheets summarize the impacts—both financial and operational—that stem from the loss of individual business functions and processes. They also identify when the loss of a function or process would result in the identified business impacts.

Business continuity plans (BCPs) are created to help speed up the recovery of an organization filling a threat or disaster. The plan puts in place mechanisms and functions to allow personnel and assets to minimize company downtime. BCPs cover all organizational risks should a disaster happen, such as flood or fire.  

Federal Emergency Management Agency. " Business Process Analysis and Business Impact Analysis User Guide ." Pages 15 - 17.

Ready. “ IT Disaster Recovery Plan .”

Federal Emergency Management Agency. " Business Process Analysis and Business Impact Analysis User Guide ." Pages 15-17.

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Business Continuity Planning

Organize a business continuity team and compile a  business continuity plan  to manage a business disruption. Learn more about how to put together and test a business continuity plan with the videos below.

Business Continuity Plan Supporting Resources

• Business Continuity Plan Situation Manual
• Business Continuity Plan Test Exercise Planner Instructions
• Business Continuity Plan Test Facilitator and Evaluator Handbook

Business Continuity Training Videos

The Business Continuity Planning Suite is no longer supported or available for download.

Business Continuity Training Introduction

An overview of the concepts detailed within this training. Also, included is a humorous, short video that introduces viewers to the concept of business continuity planning and highlights the benefits of having a plan. Two men in an elevator experience a spectrum of disasters from a loss of power, to rain, fire, and a human threat. One man is prepared for each disaster and the other is not.

View on YouTube

Business Continuity Training Part 1: What is Business Continuity Planning?

An explanation of what business continuity planning means and what it entails to create a business continuity plan. This segment also incorporates an interview with a company that has successfully implemented a business continuity plan and includes a discussion about what business continuity planning means to them.

Business Continuity Training Part 2: Why is Business Continuity Planning Important?

An examination of the value a business continuity plan can bring to an organization. This segment also incorporates an interview with a company that has successfully implemented a business continuity plan and includes a discussion about how business continuity planning has been valuable to them.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: What's the Business Continuity Planning Process?

An overview of the business continuity planning process. This segment also incorporates an interview with a company about its process of successfully implementing a business continuity plan.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 1

The first of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “prepare” to create a business continuity plan.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 2

The second of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “define” their business continuity plan objectives.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 3

The third of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “identify” and prioritize potential risks and impacts.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 4

The fourth of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “develop” business continuity strategies.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 5

The fifth of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should define their “teams” and tasks.

Business Continuity Training Part 3: Planning Process Step 6

The sixth of six steps addressed in this Business Continuity Training, which detail the process of building a business continuity plan. This step addresses how organizations should “test” their business continuity plans. View on YouTube

Last Updated: 12/21/2023

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What Is Business Continuity? Everything You Need to Know

Michael Hickins | Content Strategist | May 16, 2024

In This Article

What Is Business Continuity?

Business continuity explained, why is business continuity important to businesses, what does business continuity include, what is included in a business continuity plan (bcp), building a business continuity plan, testing a business continuity plan, business continuity standards, business continuity and disaster recovery, technology and business continuity, simplify your business continuity strategy with oracle cloud infrastructure, business continuity faqs.

Business continuity brings together people and technology to help organizations prepare for and overcome interruptions to normal business operations. Business continuity planning encompasses disaster recovery—the restoration of IT services following an unexpected outage—but its purpose is broader. The goal of a business continuity strategy is to keep the business up and running regardless of whether operations are impacted by an unplanned catastrophe, such as an earthquake, or a planned event, such as applying a major infrastructure patch.

Business leaders use business continuity as a paradigm for maintaining operations, even if in a temporarily limited capacity, in the event of unexpected or planned disruptions to normal business processes. These disruptions can include natural disasters, cyberattacks, armed conflict or other force majeure, global pandemics, power outages due to storms or flooding, infrastructure failures, planned maintenance activities, and even the unexpected departure of a key employee. Cloud computing technologies such as containerization and virtualization can help make business continuity measures more affordable for companies of all sizes.

Key Takeaways

• Business continuity involves developing processes ahead of time to maintain availability during unexpected or planned disruptions to normal operations.
• Business continuity planning is a methodology for ensuring that a business has the processes in place to maintain critical functions.
• Business continuity planning involves assembling a team, assessing risks, identifying priority operations, and ensuring that a disaster recovery plan is in place that can bring critical IT infrastructure and data back online in a timely manner.
• Business continuity isn’t a one-and-done proposition. The plan has to be practiced and tested regularly so people are familiar with their responsibilities and gaps in the plan can be identified and closed.
• A new generation of cloud computing, containerization in particular, has made business continuity and disaster recovery more efficient and cost-effective than even 10 years ago.

Businesses typically adopt strategies to thwart existential threats such as established competitors, market entrants, sudden changes in customer behavior or tastes, and technological change.

However, another threat that’s more difficult to plan for is an unexpected, usually temporary event that makes it difficult or impossible for the business to continue operating as usual. Natural events such as hurricanes and prolonged heat waves can result in a loss of the electric power used to run facilities or critical IT services. Criminal entities or nation-states can interrupt IT operations or hold data for ransom. Other types of events, such as the unexpected death or departure of key personnel, supply chain disruptions due to war or labor strikes, and consumer boycotts, are equally difficult to plan for.

Successful companies therefore develop business continuity plans to provide a template for how managers and other employees should react should such extraordinary events occur.

On the flip side, companies that don’t have business continuity plans face significant peril. Even accounting for variables such as the industry, company size, and business type, downtime of an organization’s online presence alone can cost it between US$2,300 and US$9,000 per minute—and that doesn’t account for the cost of damage to its reputation and business relationships.

Most businesses can withstand slowing or halting their business activities for a short period of time, although banks, utilities, healthcare providers, and companies in some other industries aren’t afforded this luxury and must follow statutory requirements and ensure they can resume normal operations almost immediately following a disruption.

In most cases, irrespective of regulatory requirements, businesses can ill afford a prolonged disruption to their activities because even the most patient customers will eventually find alternative vendors. In fact, an extended downtime event at a competitor can present an opportunity for others in the sector to gain market share.

When planning for business continuity, organizations should also consider partners, vendors, and sensitive supply chains, where outages could have irreparable cascading downstream effects.

In its simplest terms, business continuity is the idea that an organization will continue operations in spite of disasters, events, nefarious acts, or other calamities that temporarily interrupt the ordinary course of business. It includes the following:

• Assessing functions such as production, customer service, sales, and marketing and ranking them by order of priority. In an emergency, your organization may not be able to get all its functions up and running immediately, so knowing which ones are most critical to its success is crucial to surviving the first minutes, hours, and days.
• Assessing key suppliers and service providers for their adaptability and flexibility. Ensure that they have their own business continuity plans, and in the case of IT providers, that they have redundancy, data replication, and other disaster recovery processes in place to ensure your business won’t suffer from disruptions to their operations.
• Ensuring that the business complies with relevant local, national, and international standards; this is most important in the finance, healthcare, and utility sectors.

At its most basic, a business continuity plan (BCP) is the simple acknowledgement by leadership that unforeseen disruptive events, often outside the organization’s control, will inevitably occur and that they should take steps to ensure the company will be able to continue doing business, even if in a limited capacity for a short period of time.

A BCP must include the disaster recovery (DR) plan, which, as its name suggests, is a framework for recovering systems and, most importantly, data after an unexpected outage. Events that can cause such an outage include hurricanes or tornadoes that knock out power or make travel to corporate offices impossible, armed conflicts that disrupt supply chains, cyberattacks that render systems inoperable, and global pandemics that force people to work from home. But the most common cause of disaster is human error, such as an employee unwittingly falling for a phishing scam or a database administrator who doesn’t get around to applying a software patch until after the system is compromised.

And while it’s true that future events are impossible to predict, failing to prepare for them would be foolhardy—and against laws and regulations governing many industries. As Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former US president and supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, noted: “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”

In other words, unexpected events can make the details of many plans irrelevant or anachronistic, but the very process of planning helps ready an organization for whatever may come next. Eisenhower also said of planning: “If you haven’t been planning you can’t start to work, intelligently at least.”

Still, DR is integral to but not the only key component of an effective BCP. A comprehensive BCP should include the following elements:

• Business impact analysis. Determine which functions and processes are critical to the organization’s survival, and understand the impact if they were to be disrupted. This analysis should be continuous, but it’s especially important when the business expands into new product markets or geographic areas and when it adds core technologies such as a new data center or new cloud infrastructure. For example, a business with key operations in areas hit frequently by tropical storms should consider building or leasing facilities in areas outside a typical storm’s path.
• Communications plan. Establish clear communication channels for internal and external stakeholders to provide timely and accurate information during a crisis.
• Employee well-being and safety. Plan for remote work capabilities, and prioritize the health and safety of employees and their families over other considerations.
• Risk assessment and management. Assess how key customers, suppliers, or other partners on which the business depends might react to sudden business disruptions, how supply chains might be affected, which legal issues might arise, and what exposure the organization has to natural disasters and other disruptions.
• Supply chain resilience. Develop strategies to manage supply chain risk, including diversifying suppliers and sourcing options wherever possible. Consider a scenario where the business has to relocate to one or more secondary locations.
• Training and awareness. Regularly train employees on their roles in the event of a disaster or other major business disruption so they’re comfortable with the procedures and protocols they should follow.

Business continuity planning is essential to the survival of an organization in the event of a natural disaster or other disruption to the normal course of business. Indeed, about 25% of businesses don’t reopen after disasters, according to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency . Businesses should take the following steps to build an effective BCP:

• Identify a business continuity manager (BCM) and make it clear that the BCM has the full support of senior leaders. At large companies, the BCM often reports to the chief financial officer.
• The BCM should assemble a team representing key business functions, such as manufacturing, sales, customer service, IT, operations, human resources, and marketing.
• This team then works to identify areas of the business that are critical to ongoing operations, such as IT, telecommunications infrastructure, building management, vendor management, and payroll, as well as customers that generate significant amounts of revenue. Typically, businesses peg their continuity plans to two metrics: a recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO). The RTO is the maximum length of time it should take to bring critical IT systems back online. The RPO is how much data the business can afford to lose before it’s harmed beyond the determined acceptable limits.
• Create a list of key stakeholders, including their full contact information and areas of responsibility. The BCM should ensure that physical copies of the list are easily accessible in a number of specified locations. In other words, don’t assume digital versions of the list, or anything else, will be available during a disruption.
• Determine which business areas have priority in the event of a disruption and whether current deployments allow for recovery within the stated RTO time frame. Does a business unit or line-of-business team require a simple backup, data replication to a secondary site, or real-time data protection and recovery? For example, if it’s determined that the business can’t tolerate the loss of an ecommerce site for more than an hour but the current deployment of that site would require a recovery time of four hours, IT may need to re-architect the site or find a new provider. Additionally, acknowledge which risks the business is willing to accept because hedging them would be too expensive, and offset them in some other way, such as by purchasing an insurance policy.
• Create communications plans for the business as a whole and for each functional area. Make sure key stakeholders are aware of these plans and can access them in the event of a disruption.
• Identify locations, including home offices, that could be used as temporary worksites if the main offices are inaccessible for long periods of time. Plan to make critical data and applications available as quickly as possible in those locations.
• Vet key suppliers and service providers to ensure they have their own BCPs in place that protect your business should they encounter a significant disruption.
• Practice the plan by walking all stakeholders through the steps that must be taken in the event of a disruption. Set up a schedule to test these plans at least once a year to identify and control for changes among suppliers, personnel, or facilities.

Finally, experts advise making recovery operations as automated as possible, allowing stakeholders and workers to focus on the overall business continuity plan. One example is using failover systems that automatically switch to backup servers or networks if the primary ones fail. Automation increases the chances of a positive, predictable outcome.

Business continuity plans are only as good as the habits of the people who use them. While predicting an actual disaster is near impossible, it’s entirely possible to simulate a disruptive event so staff can practice the actions they’ll likely have to perform. Before any testing can occur, stakeholders need to have seen and assimilated the BCP.

Tests should evaluate key elements of the plan, including reaction times to power outages and IT failures, the viability of both internal and external communications systems, and alert and activation procedures for key personnel.

Testing not only familiarizes people with their responsibilities in the event of a disruption, but it also helps identify plan gaps or flaws so they can be addressed before an actual emergency.

Best practices for this type of testing include the following:

• Tabletop testing. This involves bringing key stakeholders into a physical or virtual conference room, describing a disruptive event, and then asking each of them to list the actions they would take in accordance with the BCP they will have already read.
• Walk-through testing. Also known as a mock recovery test, this is a more comprehensive version of the tabletop exercise. In this test, employees physically walk through the steps they would take in the event of a disruption. For example, facilities management staff would demonstrate how they would ensure that backup generators were functioning, and someone in IT would use the contact information document to get in touch with your data center or cloud service provider.
• Third-party testing services. Outside vendors test how prepared your organization’s staff and key stakeholders are to react to simulated disruptions, including ransomware demands and other nefarious acts. Firms that specialize in cybersecurity can test employees to help ensure they don’t fall for phishing or other psychological tricks that can result in breaches to IT systems.

BCMs should conduct tests at least annually and establish a format for stakeholders to share and review the results.

Business continuity plans in certain industries—notably financial services, utilities, and healthcare—are subject to local, national, and/or international standards. In fact, more than 120 business continuity management regulations apply to a variety of industries, according to DRI International , a nonprofit disaster recovery consultancy. These include Security and Exchange Commission, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and Sarbanes-Oxley regulations in the United States as well as the BASEL III international regulatory framework for banks and the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 22301.

Other business continuity standards include the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s SP 800-34 and 24762 and the US National Fire Protection Association’s NFPA 1600 standard for continuity, emergency, and crisis management. More general business continuity regulations include the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, which, because it governs the storage and dissemination of data, is also relevant to business continuity.

Business continuity and disaster recovery are closely related. Both are organizational plans for surviving and quickly recovering from a potentially catastrophic business disruption, and both are also closely linked to IT, given businesses’ reliance on IT infrastructure and applications.

To cite just one example of how dependent all businesses have become on IT, most professional sports venues in the United States no longer accept cash payments, meaning that computerized point-of-sale systems need to be operational for them to sell food, beverages, gear, and other goods.

Business Continuity vs. Disaster Recovery

ISO 22301 defines business continuity as “documented procedures that guide organizations to respond, recover, resume, and restore to a pre-defined level of operations following disruption.” Disaster recovery is a subset of business continuity that involves restoring IT services, incrementally if necessary. A key way that business continuity differs from DR is that business continuity accounts for all business interruptions, including those that are planned.

Business continuity is contingent on a wide variety of factors, including the industry in which an organization operates and the nature of the disruption itself. But in the Information Age, almost all business continuity depends on some level of IT functionality. It’s therefore crucial for companies to make certain that they have appropriate levels of redundant infrastructure and data replication in place, not just to support the ordinary course of business but also to ensure the business can operate efficiently enough during a disruptive event.

The shorter the RTOs and RPOs, the better for continuity. However, the cost of achieving any RTO or RPO goes up as each objective becomes shorter. Architectural choices can help. Business leaders should consider using cloud computing and, optimally, containers to further isolate critical data from systems that have been disrupted. They should also look for cloud service providers with geographically disparate failover facilities.

One of the advantages of cloud computing from a business continuity perspective is what’s called “pilot light deployments,” where secondary sites or copies of corporate workloads can be as small as a single virtual machine (VM) or container. In the case of a failover, that single VM or container can, if needed, kick off an automated process that lets your organization spin up the rest of the infrastructure. And by using a pilot light deployment, organizations need only pay for that single resource rather than replicating an entire system.

Another strategy is the so-called “blue-green” architecture, where instead of having four to six redundant environments for development and testing and a separate one for production deployment, an organization deploys only two redundant, distributed environments. Let’s say the “blue” environment is production and the “green” is development and testing. When development is completed, the “green” environment becomes the primary production environment, and the “blue” environment is used for development, testing, and disaster recovery. This cycle then repeats itself.

Oracle makes it simpler and more affordable to develop a holistic business continuity plan. Because Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) was developed later than other hyperscale clouds, it was built for better efficiency and reliability, lower latency, and superior flexibility compared with competing clouds. In addition to containers, OCI has flexible virtual machines, which means businesses can buy only as much compute power as they need. Other providers offer less flexibility, requiring customers to overprovision their instances, costing them more money. OCI has multiple geographically separated cloud regions in many countries, enabling customers to remain compliant with data sovereignty regulations while still having disparate locations for the purposes of business continuity.

Based on decades of development experience and real-world customer feedback, Oracle has developed best practices called Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) . Oracle MAA provides the blueprint for implementing high availability, scalability, disaster recovery, and data protection solutions in Oracle Database environments.

The Oracle MAA best practices, maintained by a team of Oracle developers, continually validate the integrated use of Oracle Database High Availability features such as Oracle Real Application Clusters and Oracle Data Guard using chaos engineering techniques and other testing methodologies.

Oracle MAA is further extended with the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Full Stack Disaster Recovery service. OCI Full Stack Disaster Recovery orchestrates the transition of compute, databases, and applications between OCI regions from around the globe with a single click. Customers can automate the steps needed to recover one or more business systems without redesigning or re-architecting existing infrastructure, databases, or applications and without needing specialized management or conversion servers.

Moreover, Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Exadata Database Service have redundancy built in, which means customers don’t pay extra for data replication within the same availability zone.

The expectations for business continuity have changed as the technology landscape has evolved. For example, most businesses used to think about RTOs in terms of so-called tier 1 applications, but less expensive cloud computing options, such as pilot lights, mean that organizations can afford to create business continuity plans for all their applications.

Cloud is key to a successful—and affordable—business continuity strategy. Learn why.

What are the 4 pillars of business continuity?

At its most basic, business continuity consists of assembling a team focused on business continuity, assessing which areas of the business are most at risk during a disruptive event, creating a plan for maintaining operations at minimally viable levels, and then rehearsing and testing that plan on a regular basis.

What’s the difference between business continuity and disaster recovery?

Business continuity is an organizational approach to ensuring that an organization can continue operating in some capacity through any disruption, planned or not, while disaster recovery focuses on bringing IT systems back up.

Why is having a BCP important?

Organizations that don’t have updated business continuity plans are at greater risk than those that do. At worst, they may permanently go out of business due to a significant unexpected disruption to normal operations that drives customers to competitors, loses data, and proves expensive to fix.

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Blog Business 7 Business Continuity Plan Examples

7 Business Continuity Plan Examples

Written by: Danesh Ramuthi Nov 28, 2023

A business continuity plan (BCP) is a strategic framework that prepares businesses to maintain or swiftly resume their critical functions in the face of disruptions, whether they stem from natural disasters, technological failures, human error, or other unforeseen events.

In today’s fast-paced world, businesses face an array of potential disruptions ranging from cyberattacks and ransomware to severe weather events and global pandemics. By having a well-crafted BCP, businesses can mitigate these risks, ensuring the safety and continuity of their critical services and operations. To further safeguard their operations, integrating measures to protect against ransomware into their BCP is a natural and essential step.

Responsibility for business continuity planning typically lies with top management and dedicated planning teams within an organization. It is a cross-functional effort that involves input and coordination across various departments, ensuring that all aspects of the business are considered.

For businesses looking to develop or refine their business continuity strategies, there are numerous resources available. Tools like Venngage’s business plan maker and their business continuity plan templates offer practical assistance, streamlining the process of creating a robust and effective BCP. 

Click to jump ahead: 

7 business continuity plan examples

Business continuity types, how to write a business continuity plan, how often should a business continuity plan be reviewed, business continuity plan vs. disaster recovery plan, final thoughts.

In business, unpredictability is the only certainty. This is where business continuity plans (BCPs) come into play. These plans are not just documents; they are a testament to a company’s preparedness and commitment to sustained operations under adverse conditions. To illustrate the practicality and necessity of these plans, let’s delve into some compelling examples.

Business continuity plan example for small business

Imagine a small business specializing in digital marketing services, with a significant portion of its operations reliant on continuous internet connectivity and digital communication tools. This business, although small, caters to a global clientele, making its online presence and prompt service delivery crucial.

Scope and objective:

This Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is designed to ensure the continuity of digital marketing services and client communications in the event of an unforeseen and prolonged internet outage. Such an outage could be caused by a variety of factors, including cyberattacks, technical failures or service provider issues. The plan aims to minimize disruption to these critical services, ensuring that client projects are delivered on time and communication lines remain open and effective.

Operations at risk:

Operation: Digital Marketing Services Operation Description: A team dedicated to creating and managing digital marketing campaigns for clients across various time zones. Business Impact: High Impact Description: The team manages all client communications, campaign designs, and real-time online marketing strategies. An internet outage would halt all ongoing campaigns and client communications, leading to potential loss of business and client trust.

Recovery strategy:

The BCP should include immediate measures like switching to a backup internet service provider or using mobile data as a temporary solution. The IT team should be prepared to deploy these alternatives swiftly.

Immediate measures within the BCP should encompass alternatives like switching to a backup internet service provider or utilizing mobile data, supplemented by tools such as backup and recovery systems, cloud-based disaster recovery solutions, and residential proxies , while the IT team should be prepared to deploy these swiftly. 

Additionally, the company should have a protocol for informing clients about the situation via alternative communication channels like mobile phones.

Roles and responsibilities:

Representative: Alex Martinez Role: IT Manager Description of Responsibilities:

• Oversee the implementation of the backup internet connectivity plan.
• Coordinate with the digital marketing team to ensure minimal disruption in campaign management.
• Communicate with the service provider for updates and resolution timelines.

Business continuity plan example for software company

In the landscape of software development, a well-structured Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is vital. This example illustrates a BCP for a software company, focusing on a different kind of disruption: a critical data breach.

Scope and objectives:

This BCP is designed to ensure the continuity of software development and client data security in the event of a significant data breach. Such a breach could be due to cyberattacks, internal security lapses, or third-party service vulnerabilities. The plan prioritizes the rapid response to secure data, assess the impact on software development projects and maintain client trust and communication.

Operation: Software Development and Data Security Operation Description: The software development team is responsible for creating and maintaining software products, which involves handling sensitive client data. In the realm of software development, where the creation and maintenance of products involve handling sensitive client data, prioritizing security is crucial. Strengthen your software development team’s capabilities by incorporating the best antivirus with VPN features, offering a robust defense to protect client information and maintain a secure operational environment. The integrity and security of this data are paramount.

Business Impact: Critical Impact Description: A data breach could compromise client data, leading to loss of trust, legal consequences and potential financial penalties. It could also disrupt ongoing development projects and delay product releases.

The IT security team should immediately isolate the breached systems to prevent further data loss, leveraging data loss prevention tools to further enhance protection. They should then work on identifying the breach’s source and extent. Simultaneously, the client relations team should inform affected clients about the breach and the steps being taken. The company should also engage a third-party cybersecurity or pentest firm for an independent investigation and recovery assistance.

Representative: Sarah Lopez Role: Head of IT Security Contact Details: [email protected] Description of Responsibilities:

• Lead the initial response to the data breach, including system isolation and assessment.
• Coordinate with external cybersecurity experts for breach analysis and mitigation.
• Work with the legal team to understand and comply with data breach notification laws.
• Communicate with the software development team leaders about the impact on ongoing projects.

Related: 7 Best Business Plan Software for 2023

Business continuity plan example for manufacturing

In the manufacturing sector, disruptions can significantly impact production lines, supply chains, and customer commitments. This example of a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) for a manufacturing company addresses a specific scenario: a major supply chain disruption.

This BCP is formulated to ensure the continuity of manufacturing operations in the event of a significant supply chain disruption. Such disruptions could be caused by geopolitical events, natural disasters affecting key suppliers or transportation network failures. The plan focuses on maintaining production capabilities and fulfilling customer orders by managing and mitigating supply chain risks.

Operation: Production Line Operation Description: The production line is dependent on a steady supply of raw materials and components from various suppliers to manufacture products. Business Impact: High Impact Description: A disruption in the supply chain can lead to a halt in production, resulting in delayed order fulfillment, loss of revenue and potential damage to customer relationships.

The company should establish relationships with alternative suppliers to ensure a diversified supply chain. In the event of a disruption, the procurement team should be able to quickly switch to these alternative sources. Additionally, maintaining a strategic reserve of critical materials can buffer short-term disruptions. The logistics team should also develop flexible transportation plans to adapt to changing scenarios.

Representative: Michael Johnson Role: Head of Supply Chain Management Contact Details: [email protected] Description of Responsibilities:

• Monitor global supply chain trends and identify potential risks.
• Develop and maintain relationships with alternative suppliers.
• Coordinate with logistics to ensure flexible transportation solutions.
• Communicate with production managers about supply chain status and potential impacts on production schedules.

Related: 15+ Business Plan Templates for Strategic Planning

BCPs are essential for ensuring that a business can continue operating during crises. Here’s a summary of the different types of business continuity plans that are common:

• Operational : Involves ensuring that critical systems and processes continue functioning without disruption. It’s vital to have a plan to minimize revenue loss in case of disruptions.
• Technological : For businesses heavily reliant on technology, this type of continuity plan focuses on maintaining and securing internal systems, like having offline storage for important documents.
• Economic continuity : This type ensures that the business remains profitable during disruptions. It involves future-proofing the organization against scenarios that could negatively impact the bottom line.
• Workforce continuity : Focuses on maintaining adequate and appropriate staffing levels, especially during crises, ensuring that the workforce is capable of handling incoming work.
• Safety : Beyond staffing, safety continuity involves creating a comfortable and secure work environment where employees feel supported, especially during crises.
• Environmental : It addresses the ability of the team to operate effectively and safely in their physical work environment, considering threats to physical office spaces and planning accordingly.
• Security : Means prioritizing the safety and security of employees and business assets, planning for potential security breaches and safeguarding important business information.
• Reputation : Focuses on maintaining customer satisfaction and a good reputation, monitoring conversations about the brand and having action plans for reputation management.

As I have explained so far, a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is invaluable. Writing an effective BCP involves a series of strategic steps, each crucial to ensuring that your business can withstand and recover from unexpected events. Here’s a guide on how to craft a robust business continuity plan:

1. Choose your business continuity team

Assemble a dedicated team responsible for the development and implementation of the BCP. The team should include members from various departments with a deep understanding of the business operations.

2. Outline your plan objectives

Clearly articulate what the plan aims to achieve. Objectives may include minimizing financial loss, ensuring the safety of employees, maintaining critical business operations, and protecting the company’s reputation.

3. Meet with key players in your departments

Engage with department heads and key personnel to gain insights into the specific needs and processes of each department. This helps in identifying critical functions and resources.

4. Identify critical functions and types of threats

Determine which functions are vital to the business’s survival and identify potential threats that could impact these areas. 

5. Carry on risk assessments across different areas

Evaluate the likelihood and impact of identified threats on each critical function. This assessment helps in prioritizing the risks and planning accordingly.

6. Conduct a business impact analysis (BIA)

Perform a BIA to understand the potential consequences of disruption to critical business functions. It has to be done in determining the maximum acceptable downtime and the resources needed for business continuity.

7. Start drafting the plan

Compile the information gathered into a structured document. The plan should include emergency contact information, recovery strategies and detailed action steps for different scenarios.

8. Test the plan for any gaps

Conduct simulations or tabletop exercises to test the plan’s effectiveness. This testing can reveal unforeseen gaps or weaknesses in the plan.

9. Review & revise your plan

Use the insights gained from testing to refine and update the plan. Continual revision ensures the plan remains relevant and effective in the face of changing business conditions and emerging threats.

Read Also: How to Write a Business Plan Outline [Examples + Templates]

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) should ideally be reviewed and updated at least annually. 

The annual review ensures that the plan remains relevant and effective in the face of new challenges and changes within the business, such as shifts in business strategy, introduction of new technology or changes in operational processes. 

Additionally, it’s crucial to reassess the BCP following any significant business changes, such as mergers, acquisitions or entry into new markets, as well as after the occurrence of any major incident that tested the plan’s effectiveness. 

However, in rapidly changing industries or in businesses that face a high degree of uncertainty or frequent changes, more frequent reviews – such as bi-annually or quarterly – may be necessary. 

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) are two crucial components of organizational preparedness, yet they serve different functions. The BCP is aimed at preventing interruptions to business operations and maintaining regular activities. 

It focuses on aspects such as the location of operations during a crisis (like a temporary office or remote work), how staff will communicate and which functions are prioritized. In essence, a BCP details how a business can continue operating during and after a disruption​​​​.

On the other hand, a DRP is more specific to restoring data access and IT infrastructure after a disaster. It describes the steps that employees must follow during and after a disaster to ensure minimal function necessary for the organization to continue. 

Essentially, while a BCP is about maintaining operations, a DRP is about restoring critical functions, particularly IT-related, after a disruption has occurred​

It’s clear that having a robust and adaptable business continuity plan (BCP) is not just a strategic advantage but a fundamental necessity for businesses of all sizes and sectors. 

From small businesses to large corporations, the principles of effective business continuity planning remain consistent: identify potential threats, assess the impact on critical functions, and develop a comprehensive strategy to maintain operations during and after a disruption.

The process of writing a BCP, as detailed in this article, underscores the importance of a thorough and thoughtful approach. It’s about more than just drafting a document; it’s about creating a living framework that evolves with your business and the changing landscape of risks.

To assist in this crucial task, you can use Venngage’s business plan maker & their business continuity plan templates . These tools streamline the process of creating a BCP, ensuring that it is not only comprehensive but also clear, accessible and easy to implement. 

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Business Continuity Planning: Ensuring the Resilience of Your Organization

Let’s explore the intricacies of business continuity planning, from understanding its importance to implementing a robust strategy that safeguards your enterprise.

Published by Orgvue   November 20, 2023

Home > Resources > article > Business Continuity Planning: Ensuring the Resilience of Your Organization

In an unpredictable world, the ability to sustain your business’s essential functions and operations, even in the face of disruptions, is paramount.

Business continuity planning is the framework that ensures your organization can weather storms, both literal and metaphorical.

What is Business Continuity Planning?

At its core, business continuity planning is the process of developing a proactive strategy to ensure an organization’s critical functions and operations can continue in the face of unforeseen disruptions.

It encompasses a range of activities, from risk assessment to the creation of detailed recovery plans, with the ultimate goal of minimizing downtime and ensuring the organization’s resilience.

The Importance of Business Continuity Planning

The importance of being prepared for various external and internal factors cannot be overstated. While many businesses have a standard business plan, not all of them consider the potential disruptions caused by natural calamities, economic downturns, or other unexpected events. Business continuity planning is the key to ensuring a company’s sustained operation, regardless of the challenges it may face.

Business continuity planning goes beyond the traditional business plan. While a business plan outlines goals and strategies for growth, a continuity plan focuses on how the organization will continue to function in the face of adversity. It involves identifying potential risks and developing strategies to mitigate and recover from them. Whether it’s a natural disaster, a cyberattack or an economic recession, having a well-thought-out strategic plan is essential for business survival.

One of the most significant threats to businesses is an economic downturn, such as a recession. During these challenging times, consumer spending often decreases, and businesses may face financial instability. A recession can have a ripple effect on companies of all sizes, causing decreased revenue, layoffs, and even closures.

For a detailed look at the impact of recessions on businesses, read how to prepare for a recession , which delves into strategies for navigating these challenging economic conditions.

Business strategy planning is not just about surviving during tough times; it’s also crucial for capitalizing on periods of growth. When businesses experience an upturn, they often need to scale rapidly to meet increased demand. Having a continuity plan in place allows for a smoother transition during periods of growth, ensuring that the infrastructure, resources and workforce can adapt effectively.

The financial consequences of not having a business continuity plan can be devastating. Without a plan in place, businesses are more vulnerable to unexpected disruptions, which can result in significant financial losses. These losses may come from increased downtime, lost revenue, legal liabilities, reputational damage and the costs associated with recovery efforts.

Considerations for Business Continuity Planning

Creating a robust business continuity plan is a complex task that involves a multitude of factors. Among these considerations, three key aspects stand out: cultural differences, limited resources and alignment with business objectives. A successful business strategy plan takes these factors into account to ensure that an organization can effectively respond to disruptions while maintaining its core values and strategic direction.

1. Cultural Differences

Cultural diversity is a significant consideration in business strategy planning, especially for multinational companies or organizations with a diverse workforce. Cultural differences can influence how employees perceive and respond to crises. When developing a business continuity plan, it is important to consider the following aspects:

• Communication Styles : Different cultures have varying communication norms and hierarchies. Understanding how employees from various cultural backgrounds communicate during a crisis can help in crafting effective crisis communication strategies.
• Decision-Making Processes : Some cultures prioritize consensus-driven decision-making, while others lean towards hierarchical authority. A business continuity plan should acknowledge these differences and provide flexibility in decision-making approaches during disruptions.
• Crisis Response Expectations : Cultural expectations can shape how employees expect the organization to respond to a crisis. Your business strategy plan should be sensitive to these expectations and ensure that response strategies align with cultural norms.

2. Limited Resources

For many businesses, resource constraints are a reality. When developing a business continuity plan, it’s crucial to consider the organization’s resource limitations, such as budget, personnel and technology. Here are some key considerations:

• Resource Allocation : Prioritize critical functions and allocate resources accordingly. Not all business processes are equally important, and a business continuity plan should identify and protect the most essential ones first.
• Efficiency and Scalability : Develop strategies that focus on efficiency and scalability. Efficient resource use is critical, and a business strategy plan should outline how to adapt to changing resource constraints during a crisis.
• Collaboration : Collaboration with external partners, such as suppliers, can be a resource-saving strategy. Establishing relationships with partners who can provide support during disruptions is a valuable aspect.

3. Business Objectives

A business continuity plan should align with the broader business objectives to ensure that it doesn’t hinder growth or innovation. Consider the following aspects:

• Market Expansion:  If the organization’s objective is to expand into new markets, the business strategy plan should accommodate this goal. It should address the challenges and opportunities that come with market expansion, including regulatory compliance and logistical considerations.
• Relocation or Migration : If there are plans to relocate or migrate operations, the business continuity plan should include strategies for a seamless transition. This may involve considerations such as data migration, employee relocation and continuity of customer service.
• Competitive Landscape : Changes in the competitive landscape, such as the emergence of new competitors, can impact the organization’s continuity. The business strategy plan should be flexible enough to adapt to shifts in the competitive environment.
• The COVID-19 pandemic forced companies to adapt rapidly, with remote work becoming the norm for many, reshaping entire industries like healthcare and e-commerce.
• The global recession of 2008 had long-lasting effects on financial institutions and prompted regulatory changes that influenced business operations.
• The rise of the internet transformed countless businesses, from retail to media, and required adaptation to online platforms.
• Looking ahead, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence have the potential to disrupt industries in unprecedented ways, with automation and data-driven decision-making reshaping the future of work. These events emphasize the critical importance of adaptable and comprehensive business continuity planning to navigate the unpredictable landscape of our ever-evolving world.

Developing a Strategic Business Plan

A well structured business plan serves as a roadmap for your organization, guiding actions and decisions while enabling effective response to a dynamic business environment.

• Conduct a comprehensive assessment of the current state of the business.
• Review financial statements, market positioning and operational performance.
• Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
• Evaluate the company’s internal resources and capabilities.
• Analyze micro-environment factors such as competitors, customers, suppliers and regulatory changes.
• Examine macro-environment factors like economic trends, technological advancements and political factors.
• Use tools like PESTEL analysis and Porter’s Five Forces to assess the external business environment.
• Clearly define short-term and long-term business objectives.
• Make objectives specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART).
• Align objectives with the company’s mission and vision.
• Identify key operational processes that drive business success.
• Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of these processes.
• Prioritize improvements in critical areas to align with strategic objectives.
• Plan for potential risks and uncertainties that could impact the business.
• Create contingency and crisis management strategies.
• Establish a risk management framework to mitigate and respond to unforeseen events.
• Implement key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress.
• Regularly review and revise the business plan based on changing market conditions.
• Adapt to emerging opportunities and challenges.
• Ensure that the strategic plan is communicated effectively throughout the organization.
• Secure buy-in and commitment from employees at all levels.
• Ensure that all team members understand their roles in achieving the plan’s objectives.
• Allocate resources, including finances and manpower, in alignment with the strategic priorities.
• Develop a budget that reflects the financial requirements of the plan.
• Monitor spending and adjust budgets as needed.
• Develop a timeline and action plan for the execution of the strategic initiatives.
• Assign responsibilities to specific teams or individuals.
• Regularly review progress and make adjustments to stay on track.
• Periodically evaluate the effectiveness of the strategic plan.
• Solicit feedback from employees, customers and stakeholders.
• Use feedback to make continuous improvements and refine the plan.
• Establish a system for measuring and reporting progress.
• Create dashboards or reports to communicate key metrics to stakeholders.
• Ensure that performance data aligns with the defined objectives.
• Incorporate sustainability and responsible growth practices into the plan.
• Address social and environmental impacts as part of corporate responsibility.
• Seek opportunities for sustainable growth and innovation.
• Develop scenarios that explore alternative future situations.
• Consider various outcomes and their implications on the business.
• Prepare for different scenarios to enhance adaptability.
• Leverage technology for data analytics, automation, and efficiency.
• Stay updated on emerging technologies that can support the strategic plan.
• Integrate technology solutions to enhance business processes.

Implementing a Business Continuity Plan

 Importance of Training and Awareness:

• Awareness:  Create awareness about the business continuity plan across the organization to foster a culture of preparedness. This includes educating employees on the potential risks and the importance of the plan.

 Consistent Review of the Plan:

• Conduct post-incident reviews to assess the BCP’s performance after a real event and make necessary adjustments.

 Address Cultural and Technological Issues:

• Technological Challenges: Recognize and mitigate technological hurdles that can hinder the plan’s execution, such as infrastructure limitations or cybersecurity threats. Ensure that IT systems are resilient and can support the plan.

 Software Integration:

• Organizational design software like Orgvue can assist in visualizing and optimizing the organizational structure, enabling efficient allocation of resources and responsibilities during a disruption.

Business continuity planning is not merely a precaution but a strategic imperative for any organization. It provides a structured approach to safeguarding business operations in the face of unforeseen disruptions, thereby minimizing downtime and potential financial losses.

By fostering a culture of preparedness, training employees, regularly reviewing and adapting the plan, addressing cultural and technological issues, and leveraging software solutions like Orgvue for organizational design, businesses can ensure their resilience and adaptability in an ever-changing landscape.

For businesses with specific 1-5 year plans, the integration of business strategy planning is paramount. It aligns seamlessly with forward-looking strategies by fortifying the organization’s ability to execute those plans in the face of unexpected events.

By weaving business continuity considerations into your strategic framework, you not only protect your investments but also demonstrate your commitment to long-term success, customer trust and stakeholder confidence. The benefits of such foresight extend far beyond mitigating risk; they empower your business to thrive in an increasingly unpredictable world. Therefore, it is recommended that businesses of all sizes prioritize and integrate business continuity planning as an integral part of their strategic vision and ongoing operations.

Business Continuity Plan FAQs

● where does business continuity planning belong in an organization.

Depending on the organization’s culture, the department your business continuity plan falls under varies. IT is usually one of the most vital components of any business strategy plan, in which case it could belong under the IT department. Or, if financial impacts are your organization’s main concern, the finance department may need to run the plan.

● Who Is Responsible For the Business Continuity Plan?

The business continuity plan usually falls under the responsibility of a dedicated role or department, often led by a Business Continuity Manager, who reports to senior leadership. This individual or team is responsible for creating, implementing, and regularly updating the plan to ensure the organization’s resilience in the face of disruptions.

● Is Business Continuity Planning a Legal Requirement?

It is not always a legal requirement, but certain industries and jurisdictions may have regulations or standards that mandate organizations to have such plans in place to ensure operational resilience and preparedness for emergencies.

● What Role Can Business Continuity Planning Play In Recovering From an Incident?

It plays a crucial role in helping organizations recover from incidents by providing a structured framework to assess, respond to and mitigate the impact of disruptions, minimizing downtime and financial losses. It outlines clear procedures and responsibilities, ensuring that essential operations can resume swiftly and efficiently, thus safeguarding the organization’s reputation and maintaining stakeholder trust.

● When Should a Business Continuity Plan Be Activated?

A business continuity plan should be activated as a preventative measure in the event a disruptive incident occurs. Triggers may include natural disasters, cyberattacks, supply chain disruptions or any event that threatens the continuity of critical business functions.

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An IT business continuity plan: Why you need one and what it entails

Business continuity and disaster recovery plans ( BCDR ) are organization-wide plans to help prepare your business for a wide range of potential crises and to mitigate the impact of such events.

Threats to your business can take various forms—from global pandemics that disrupt supply chains to natural disasters that threaten your physical workspace. However, as businesses rely increasingly on various systems to manage core operations and house crucial information, including customer, employee, and financial data, threats to IT systems loom largest for many business owners.

That’s where your IT business continuity planning comes in. This may be part of a larger business continuity plan or may be conducted in isolation if IT is the sole concern of your business continuity management.

A deeper dive into business continuity planning

When an event disrupts your business’s operations, a business continuity and disaster recovery plan (BCDR) comes into action. Downtime can lead to financial losses for companies, so minimizing its impact is crucial to ensure prompt business recovery and minimize revenue loss.

Although disaster recovery is a critical function of IT systems, BCDR is much broader than merely ensuring the stability and security of your tech stack. It encompasses various aspects, such as ensuring employee safety, managing brand reputation, crisis management, identifying alternative work locations, and ensuring systems security and data protection.

Therefore, developing a comprehensive b usiness continuity and disaster recovery plan requires thoroughness. While it may not be possible to predict every potential disaster that could befall your business, you can develop fallback plans to utilize when disasters inevitably occur.

Threats to your IT systems

When you think of your IT systems, it’s natural to think of things like cyberattacks or systems downtime as posing potential threats to your business continuity. However, IT systems can face various threats that can cause significant damage and disrupt business operations. These threats include:

• Natural disasters , such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, wildfires, and tornadoes, which can damage physical infrastructure (like servers) and cause business disruptions.
• Cyberattacks and data breaches , which can result in data loss, system downtime, reputational damage, financial losses, regulatory fines, and legal liability. These attacks are becoming more sophisticated and frequent, and companies must take necessary precautions to secure their systems and data.
• Human errors made by employees, contractors, or vendors can also lead to system failures, data breaches, or other disruptions to business operations. Companies must invest in training and implementing proper protocols to mitigate such risks.
• Power outages can result in system downtime and data loss. Companies must implement backup power systems and disaster recovery plans to minimize the impact of such events.

It’s important for your organization to identify the specific threats that are most relevant to their business and to develop appropriate plans and strategies to mitigate those risks.

Where to start when developing an IT business continuity plan (BCP)

Most good plans start with information-gathering, and your IT business continuity plans are no different. The components of gathering the right information are outlined here:

Business continuity management (BCM)

Business continuity management (BCM) is the process of identifying potential threats and risks to an organization, developing plans to mitigate those risks, and ensuring that the organization is prepared to respond effectively to a crisis or disruption. 

The goal of BCM is to enable an organization to continue its critical operations during and after a catastrophic event, whether that event is a natural disaster, cyber-attack, or any other unexpected occurrence that could impact the organization’s ability to function.

The role of a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) in business continuity management 

A business impact analysis (BIA) is a key component of your business continuity management or BCM process. The BIA identifies and evaluates the potential impact of a disruption on critical IT functions and business processes.

When doing a BIA, you’ll:

• Identify the essential IT functions and processes your business needs to restore quickly after a disruption. For example, if you’re an e-commerce business, your website and payment processing systems are critical IT functions that need to be restored quickly to avoid losing revenue and customers.
• Assess and quantify the potential impacts of a disruption on each function or process. These impacts can range from shipping delays to customers to regulatory non-compliance. By understanding the potential impacts, you’ll be able to prioritize your disaster recovery efforts and allocate resources effectively.
• Understand the resources required to support each IT function or process. This can include personnel, technology, and facilities. This can help you identify single points of failure, such as only one person who knows how to operate a certain system. If that person is unavailable, it could result in significant downtime and lost revenue.

By conducting a BIA, you can develop targeted and effective recovery strategies that minimize the impact of a disruption on your IT systems. It’s recommended that organizations conduct a BIA at least once a year or whenever there are significant changes to the organization’s operations or risk profile.

How your IT business continuity plan comes to life

As business continuity and disaster recovery are interdependent, there is a significant overlap in devising an IT disaster recovery (DR) plan and an IT business continuity (BC) plan. As such, we like to consider all three branches of BCDR when developing an effective business continuity plan. Those three branches are:

• Emergency response: This branch of business continuity focuses on the immediate response to a crisis or emergency situation. Think of it as the immediate “to-do plan” if there’s a natural disaster, cyber-attack, or any other unexpected event that can disrupt business operations.
• Crisis management & business continuity: Crisis management deals with the restoration of critical business functions after an interruption, including the recovery of data, systems, and operations. The objective is to ensure that business operations can be resumed as quickly as possible and minimize the impact of the disruption.
• Disaster recovery: Time to recover critical business functions! Whether you’re rebuilding infrastructure, replacing equipment, or upgrading systems, this stage is about getting your business back to where it was. This branch also focuses on the proactive measures that organizations can take to mitigate the impact of another potential disaster or crisis.

For each IT function, you should have a plan in place that covers all three branches. Let’s look at an example:

Example: A power outage impacts critical IT systems

Power outages or blackouts can happen for a number of reasons, but if your business is located in a region that is prone to volatile weather or extreme heat, power outages are something you should prepare for well in advance. If and when a power outage occurs, you might have the following steps in place:

Your emergency response to a power outage: 

With the correct procedures and training in place, your team will know exactly how to respond the next time there’s a blackout. This might include:

• Using personal wireless hotspots for urgent tasks that require web access
• Unplugging devices from power sources so they don’t short circuit when power returns
• Reporting the outage to the relevant authorities 
• Seeking to understand the extent of the problem (often this can be found on websites or through social media accounts of power companies)
• Notifying key people (customers/leaders) about the situation (this can even be done through social media

Roles and responsibilities will also be clear so people do not duplicate efforts or create confusion.

Crisis management & business continuity: 

Now that initial steps and actions have been taken, you can move to actively manage your business while the power is out. Actions taken now will depend on the duration of the power outage, but some options include:

• Sending employees home if it’s easier for them to simply work from home or it looks like the outage may impact the rest of the business day
• Investing in a backup generator if the power will be out for a prolonged period (this might also be part of disaster recovery if it’s a proactive step to be taken for next time)
• Continuing to keep customers and stakeholders up to date via essential channels like social media, email, and even phone

Disaster recovery from power outages: 

Hooray! The power is restored. Your office can now return to normal productivity. But before everybody jumps in, your tech team might want to:

• Reset the circuit breaker before turning on devices and network routers
• Confirm any steps for restarting systems that have not been shut down properly

Having survived an outage, your business might now reassess your preparedness for such events and decide to implement some changes. This can include things like:

• Setting up an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to allow people to safely shut down their computers
• Ensuring all staff members store all business documents, contact lists, and other critical information in the cloud so it’s accessible from anywhere with an internet connection

Who’s responsible for your IT business continuity plan

Going through each and every IT system, from hardware to software, that your company uses may seem like a daunting task. That responsibility typically falls on the organization’s IT department or a designated IT team. 

However, depending on the organization’s size and structure, the responsibility for a successful business continuity plan may also fall on other departments or individuals, such as risk management, operations, human resources, or a business continuity team.

Moreover, your IT team will likely depend on all staff and even business partners for inputs on the nature of certain systems, how essential they are to maintaining business operations, and the revenue implications of those systems being down.

For example, your marketing team may use various systems for email deployment, social media monitoring, content production, and more. As such, your IT team may require information from them on which systems you use that are most critical to maintaining productivity and which systems are most closely tied to revenue.

The importance of staff training

Because human error puts your IT systems at risk, all staff should also be required to undergo annual training on data security and emergency procedures. Depending on the compliance frameworks your company adheres to, certification may also be required for all employees. 

For example, if your company processes credit card information, it may be required for all employees to complete PCI compliance training. PCI compliance training refers to a program or series of courses designed to educate individuals and organizations on the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) and the requirements for complying with these standards. 

PCI DSS is a set of security standards developed by major credit card companies to help ensure that businesses that accept, process, store, or transmit credit card information do so in a secure manner and protect against fraud and data breaches.

The importance of testing & iterating your IT business continuity plans

Just like running regular fire drills, your IT business continuity plan needs to be constantly tested and updated. Plus, every time you do a new business impact analysis (or BIA), you’ll potentially identify new areas of vulnerability that your BCDR needs to account for.

Here are some steps to follow when testing your BCDR plan:

• Define the testing objectives: Defining the objectives of the test can include testing the effectiveness of specific recovery procedures, identifying weaknesses in the plan, or assessing the readiness of key personnel.
• Develop a testing strategy: A testing strategy will outline the scope of the test, the testing approach, and the expected outcomes. This should include a detailed test plan that identifies the testing scenarios, the resources needed to conduct the test, and the criteria for success.
• Conduct the test: Run the test according to the testing plan. This may involve simulating a disaster scenario, testing specific recovery procedures, or conducting a tabletop exercise to test the response of key personnel.
• Evaluate the results: This may involve reviewing the test data, conducting post-test interviews with key personnel, or analyzing the effectiveness of specific recovery procedures.
• Improve: Based on your results, improvements to the BCDR plan may be identified and implemented. These may include revising specific recovery procedures, updating the contact list for key personnel, or investing in additional resources to improve the organization’s overall readiness for a disaster.

Need help? Working with the experts at Thoropass can help you build the foundations for a resilient business that stands the test of time.

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